Insights
Single, unmarried and living alone: the differences
“How many singles are there?” has no single answer, because it can mean at least six different things. This page lines them up, shows why published figures disagree and says what the calculator counts.
The short answer
In the calculator a person is single when they are neither married nor in an unmarried partnership. That is not “never married” (which includes unmarried couples), not “unmarried” (which includes cohabiting couples), and not “living alone” (which includes people in relationships who keep their own home). Figures from different sources are only comparable when the definition is the same.
Six concepts side by side
The table puts the common meanings next to each other. Most disagreements about “how many singles” are disagreements about the definition.
| Concept | The question it answers | Who is in | Blind spot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single (this calculator) | Is there currently no spouse and no partner? | Never married, divorced and widowed people who have no partner; whether or not they want a relationship. | Ignores whether someone is looking, and depends on how completely partnerships were captured in the source. |
| Never married (“ledig”) | Has this person ever been married? | Everybody who never married, including couples who live together for decades. | Leaves out divorced and widowed people who are alone and includes unmarried couples. |
| Unmarried (not currently married) | Is this person married right now? | Never married, divorced, widowed and (depending on the statistic) people whose registered partnership ended. | Includes unmarried couples, so it overstates the people without a partner. |
| Without a partner (survey answer) | Do you have a steady partner? | Anyone who answers no, whatever their legal status. | Depends on wording, on the age group surveyed and on whether partners in separate homes are asked about. |
| Living alone (one-person household) | Does this person live in a household of one? | Everyone with their own home and no one else in it. | Includes people in a relationship who keep their own flat; excludes single people who live with parents or flatmates. |
| Living apart together (LAT) | Is there a partner, but in a separate home? | Couples who are together but do not share a household. | Invisible in household statistics. Whether surveys count them as partnered depends on the question asked. |
Six people, four yardsticks
Take six people and ask four of the concepts about each. The answers differ from person to person, which is how two correct statistics can describe the same population with very different numbers.
| Person | Single (this calculator) | Never married | Not currently married | Lives alone |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anna, 30, never married, has lived with her partner for five years | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Ben, 45, divorced, lives alone, no partner | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Chloé, 28, never married, in a relationship, keeps her own flat | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Dan, 24, never married, no partner, lives with his parents | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Elsa, 70, widowed, no partner, lives with her daughter’s family | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| Felix, 52, married, lives with his wife | No | No | No | No |
Why published numbers disagree
Three things move a published “share of singles” besides the definition. The first is the age group: a statistic for 18 to 79 year olds mixes students with widowed grandparents. The second is the instrument: registers know the legal status, surveys know what people say about their relationships, and household surveys know who shares a roof. The third is the reference date and the population: permanent residents, all residents and the adult population are different bases.
When you compare two figures, check four things: who is counted (age, residents or all people), what is measured (legal status, partnership, household), how it was collected (register, census or sample survey) and the year. If any of the four differs, the comparison needs an explanation.
How the calculator decides who is available
The calculator starts with everybody of the sex you are looking for, cuts to the age range, applies the filters you chose and then keeps the people who are attracted to your gender (the country’s survey shares of straight and bisexual people for a woman looking for men, of gay or lesbian and bisexual people if you look for your own gender). Last, it removes the married and the partnered. The country data defines “partnered” as cohabiting or exclusive, non-married partnerships. Whether couples in separate homes are fully captured depends on the underlying survey, and we cannot verify that country by country.
The married and partnered shares are given by age group and sex, interpolated to single years of age, and tilted a little for filters that relate to relationship status (the model assumes that homeowners and parents are more often partnered). An optional intent filter, serious, casual or open to both, then splits the remaining singles by what they say they want. People who are not looking are part of the singles until you exclude them with that filter.
Where to read the official definitions
Each statistical office documents its own concepts. Start from the national offices (Federal Statistical Office of Switzerland, Destatis in Germany), the European office (Eurostat) and the United Nations Statistics Division (UN Statistics), and read the metadata of the series before comparing it with anything else. We cite these sources for their definitions only and do not copy their figures.
Try it with your own numbers
See what the definition above does in practice: these searches use the calculator’s concept of an available single.
A woman looking for men, 30–44, United States A man looking for women, 30–44, Germany